The Diary of Sirius Black
by Minor God
Summary: The events of OotP as seen by Sirius, trying to fill in the blanks of his last days, with a few plot bunnies thrown in. When Harry falls ill, Sirius takes him in, to the chagrin of Molly.  How far will Sirius go to keep his beloved Godson at Number 12?
1. Chapter 1

AN: New story in which I try to follow Sirius's last weeks of life, in 12 Grimmauld Place. While I may spin off into the realms of plot bunnies here and there, I want to make this as faithful to our beloved bookSirius as possible and show his side of events.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, except the muggle on the roof.

* * *

><p>September 2nd 1995<p>

I'm not a diary person, but Remus thought this might help me "take my mind off things", though I don't see how writing these "things" down is going to expunge them. He's angry with me because of how drunk I got last night – it wouldn't have been obvious to a passer-by, but I can see the faint twitch at the side of his mouth that you don't notice until about the tenth year of knowing him – he ended up helping me stagger to bed while I cried on his shoulder, not my finest moment. So, I will show willing. Generally I try not to drink when I'm in the pits, but the frustration is mounting more and more in this bloody house. And now Harry has left for Hogwarts.

I know I should be pleased: Hogwarts is a beautiful, thrilling and above all, safe place for him to be, unlike here. I try to picture him in Honeydukes, round the common room fire, seeing his friends, playing Quiddich, and tell myself over and over: it's for the best. But loneliness is selfish, my loneliness tries to make grabs for him, is greedy to have him here making this hellhole bearable for me.

The house is still a free-range Weasley farm. They're everywhere! Last night Molly came in after her watch-out duty and sat with me in the kitchen. It was not as tense as it has been over the past week or two, I think for once we agreed about the kids: we missed them. There was also an unsaid note of fear in the air – Voldermort. Will Hogwarts always be safe?

* * *

><p>September 5th<p>

Fuck you, Kreacher.

I so desperately want a mission, or a drink, or a friend to talk to, I've done nothing today but paint the bedrooms on the third floor for ungrateful Order members who've been out doing useful things. Is it paranoia on my part, or are they ceasing to see me? It seems like their eyes pass over me a little too quickly, as though I was part of the furniture, a servant. Maybe I should paint myself into the walls and wait to rot with the building.

Kreacher sulks for days on end, then jumps out at me to wail about his servitude and devotion to this Noble and Most Ancient House. Can't wait to mount his head on the wall.

* * *

><p>September 6th<p>

Went up to the attic rooms tonight to clear out a suspected poltergeist and got an almost deadly shock when I saw James sprawled across the floor, with his eyes and mouth gaping emptily. I heard myself scream – the room distorted with my tears and though I faltered back, I forced myself to walk towards the body. As I did the whole cold horror that gripped me took another jolt, as I realised it was not James at all, but Harry. Harry, orphaned, hounded, traumatised, and now dead.

With a good deal of weeping and fumbling I managed to say "Ridikulus" and get the body to wink up at me. Bloody boggart. Why are they here, in my house? How did they get in, how did they know the house was abandoned? Did they come one by one or as a party?

Once I'd driven the damn thing out (in a locked chest), I sat among the ruins of my family and looked up into the skylight. My namesake was twinkling gently, unlike the great fireball it must actually be. The same as me, I suppose. Made to fit into a tiny frame, like a cell… Don't, Sirius. Don't feel sorry for yourself, that way lies ruin.

Where I was going with this was to say I decided to take a running jump at the beams on the ceiling, like I did as a kid, and sling myself up to the top window of the house. I was glad to find it still easy enough. From the pane, I could smell the cold night air, the fresh smell after rainfall, and freedom. Merlin, I could not restrain myself. I knew it was a matter of my very life and soul, but what a price for my sanity! I pushed the window open and stepped out on to the tiny balcony, that overlooks the backwaters of London. My beautiful city. What wonders it held when I was younger, when it was all my oyster. Almost immediately that I stepped out, I felt a thud of shock in my innards. Staring back at me, from the balcony of number 13 was a Muggle. She was older than me, perhaps Molly's age, and had the indefinable air of sleek wealth in her clothes and glossy brown hair.

My first thought was that she would recognise me from the Wanted posters, but I was virtually unrecognisable from then. After a surprised pause, she greeted me and started on about the weather. I was too puzzled to say much – why, HOW could she see the house all of a sudden? She said her name was something Muggleish: Jane or Julie or Janet or something, and I decided not to give her my rather distinctive name, and so smiled awkwardly, and went in.

What a day!

It just occurred to me today, Harry is probably going to make Quiddich Captain next year. No matter how dim my chances of acquittal seem, I still find myself imagining the daily activities of being a father, and now a new fantasy has been added to my list: seeing Harry's face light up when he gets the same letter as James – when the badge falls out. Seeing him in his first Captained game. Remus tells me Harry has never lost a match. I miss having the lad about the place.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I'd appreciate some feedback if anyone is reading!

* * *

><p>September 7th<p>

After a lot of deliberation, I decided I could not tell Remus about the Muggle woman, since he'd go mad about me being out in the open. It's pathetic how much of a thrill I got from the mere scent of the air, of having no walls around me; now it all seems like a romantic fantasy, and so far away…

Remus will be staying for a week now, due to some underground lead in London about a Death Eater meeting place in Knockturne Alley. It makes me jealous as hell when he comes in looking ruffled and cut-up, fresh from the fray. At school it was always me in the scrapes and him waiting back at home, now look at us. Does he see it when he looks at me? He must see how I've lost my looks and virility, which have both come to nothing. Sometimes I worry that the people from the old days are disappointed in me, I think I catch them looking at me out of the corner of their eyes in disbelief, and there is always the excruciating moment of shock when I am introduced to an old Order member – I can practically hear them thinking, "How did Sirius Black turn into _that_?"

Today, for the first time in 14 years, I thought about my old flame Celia Roman. I asked Remus whatever happened to her, and he said she is married to that tosser Josiah Engleby! Fuck me. I can't picture them together: is she still so lithe with her little round face? Does she still wear her nose ring? Is he still a sausage poured into a dinner suit? Does he know that she loves to have her wrists tickled? Does he know how lucky he is?

* * *

><p>September 8th<p>

Last night I cried more heavily than I have done since I was back here. Oh Celia. How can she suddenly be old enough to be married with children? I've missed so much, and I will get none of it back. Is Harry getting too old to need me? All these years I've planned to raise him as my own, then last night, out of the blue, I realised he only needs to be raised for 2 more years, and they are hardly likely to catch that little bastard rat before then. Then I thought about starting all over again, but I will most likely be over forty when my innocence is proven. So that seems to be that. I will never marry or be a father.

On the other hand… plenty of children live at home until they marry, or forever in some cases. There's no hard and fast law that Harry will want to live alone just because he is 17. In fact when I was 17 I lived in such squalor I deserved to get leprosy, and I was still burning myself on the stove twice a week. If these relatives of his are so bad, perhaps he will need more comfort than other young adults… in a sense, he has no chance to start again for a happy childhood, so we're in the same boat.

A letter came from him today. He sounds happy and busy.

* * *

><p>September 15th<p>

There is a cold going round the Order. Yes, that is all the news of the past week. Remus has gone back home; Tonks called in yesterday looking for him and looked rather disappointed when I told her. Intriguing stuff. How old is she now, 23? That's not too bad, is it?

Today I was so ill and depressed I stayed in bed until I heard Arthur downstairs at around six this evening. I went down, kicked Kreacher out of the way and sat down with Arthur to drink warm mead, while hearing about his children. It made me think of the time Molly laid claim to Harry, and that threw me further down in the dumps. Then it was exacerbated because after I'd heard about Ginny's aptitude for herbology, Arthur started to tell _me_ about Harry. I wanted to jump up and scream! I got a _letter_ from Harry yesterday! I do not need to be told how my own Godson is!

* * *

><p>September 21st<p>

Time is stagnating. As summer drowns into autumn, the house gets darker and darker. The Order moves towards a great victory that stretches further away the more we reach out for it.

News arrived that the Ministry have sent a teacher to Hogwarts to indoctrinate the kids against preparing to defend against Voldermort.

None of the Order are here tonight, it's just me and Kreacher. I wrote back to Harry to ease my loneliness.

At about 9, I had been trying to feel tired enough for bed, but it was hopeless and the day completely wasted, so I foraged in the cellar for a bottle of wine which I took up to the attic.

I didn't mean to, though I can't deny I wanted it to happen. I tried to stop myself, but why had I come to the attic if not to reach the top window and ease out into the night? So I did. I know I'm playing with fire, but the feeling is a glorious relief from it all.

And, almighty joy, the Muggle woman was there. She stood in a strange long robe, under which she had those denim trousers they're all so fond of, clutching a cup and looking wistfully over the gardens. This time, I greeted her first.

"Hello!" she said, "Nice to see you again."

I said, "Hello. Julie wasn't it?"

"Yes. And you're…?"

"James," I said, and it came to me frighteningly easily. It was the name I used to give Muggle girls in the 70s, because they laughed at mine.

"I've never seen you here before," said Julie.

A little probing revealed she could see me, but believed I was standing on number 11, so the charm extends to the building, but not to people technically outside it. So as not to encroach on the people who owned number 11, I said I was their guest.

"I've seen a lot of new people around here lately," she said. My blood ran cold. I'll have to speak to Dumbledore about that – what is the bloody point of having protection charms on a house if we can be seen around it? "Lots of kids, and people in funny clothes," she went on.

Aha. Fucking great. Then, for I could think of nothing better, and partly because my heart was screaming out at me to do it, I said "Have you seen my son around? Dark-haired kid with glasses?" Why did I do it? She smiled and said she had seen him.

"My daughter just left for uni," she said. Uni? Is that Latin for one? One what? Either way, Jane told me she was an empty-nester, divorcee, but rather rich with it. Kind of sad to think of an ageing woman alone in a massive house. It felt like perhaps she was standing there, on her roof balcony, waiting for someone to talk to. Maybe she came back in the hopes I'd be there. Poor Jane Julie. In the end I offered her some wine and sat with her for a while. The polite thing would have been to invite her in out of the cold, but, of course I could not.


	3. Chapter 3

1st October

An awful day. I can't decide what should take precedence – my anger, my guilt, my shame, my fear… Oh God, what if I've driven my Godson away? I'd had my hopes pinned on meeting him in the dog form and he refused point-blank. Just said "No." All the anger and disappointment and, I suppose embarrassment, hit me at once and I said he wasn't as much like James as I'd thought. In a way, it was true, but Harry's been battling Voldermort since he was a year old, he has every right to be more cautious. Ron and Hermione were there too, I humiliated him in front of them. It was a powerful stab of anger, then I pulled out of the fireplace and sat there, looking blankly at the hearth for a long time. When did I become such a prick? I blame the house.

Oh Harry Potter, the two words I can't get out of my head and the two that weigh heaviest on my heart. What are you doing right now? Do we think about each other at the same time? Do you know how sorry I am?

I've never told the kid out loud that I love him, I should do that. Maybe at Christmas, it wouldn't need to be all grandiose and sentimental, I could just say it ruffling his hair as he went to bed on Christmas Eve.

* * *

><p>October 4th<p>

Aha, there was a good party here tonight: Remus, Mad Eye, Dung, Tonks, and friend of Tonks with waist-length auburn hair. We sat around the table drinking firewhiskey til the sun rose; I got into the kind of drunkenness I haven't felt in years, the happy mists of geniality and confusion. Usually when I drink alone, it's to set my head spinning so that I can't focus on any one memory for too long. But this was different. We all told jokes and tales from the first Order and laughed so hard we could almost have choked ourselves.

At one point (a point that may have lasted about half an hour) I told the assembly about Harry: how he looked like James, but had an infallible kindness born out of suffering, and, I like to think, the early nurture from his mother. How I snuck past the dementors to see him fly, which he did with such slick grace that it made me forget my troubles. How that soft, tiny creature had metamorphosed into a great hero. Then, my breath caught in my throat. Not from laughter this time. Without knowing it, I had come to the very brink of recounting my words from the other day. Suddenly I was silent. Sitting directly opposite me was Tonk's friend, who, in the warm wand-light, with the whiskey fog, was suddenly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her hair had changed from the uncertain shade between red and brown, to the deepest most lovely copper red, like Lily's. Out of her face shone the greatest domed eyes. She had a nose-ring, just like Celia's. Looking across at her, I moistened my lips, and gave her a sly grin. She smiled quickly and looked away. Not long after that, I went to bed.

The last time I tried it on with a girl, I couldn't fail… It doesn't seem like 14 years ago. But I faced the mirror to be sure of what she'd seen and almost recoiled myself. Poor girl, to have a decrepit old skeleton leering at her; she wasn't to know it was just me, she could not see a harmless romantic barely ten years older than herself.

Bizarrely, as I came up here, it made me miss that muggle neighbour, Jane. She didn't flinch when she saw me. Maybe she thinks I'm her age. What a hideous thought, I'm going to bed.

* * *

><p>October 6th<p>

Right, I need to clear my head. These are my problems as I see them.

1. I am trapped in a hellhole with only a mad elf and a screaming portrait of my bitch of a mother for company.

2. I vowed in front of God and my dearly departed friends to care for their son, and even now I'm "free", there are about 100 reasons I can't: Molly, Dumbledore, this fucking house, THE RAT etc.

3. An average wizard lives to be about 150. I am not yet forty. Ergo I could have more than a century of being locked in this house.

4. People are giving me strange looks out of the corner of their eyes, I have begun to find arbitrary words inexplicably hilarious or a call to suicide: Am I mad? I should ask Remus.

5. I will never have another friend like James. He was my soul's twin, sometimes you meet people who stop all the loneliness, and if I am certain of anything, it is that I will never feel like that again.

6. Have lost all my looks, large amount of my health

7. My friends are all embroiled in an unimaginably cruel war.

Right. Shit.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Hi guys, is anyone reading this? I'd appreciate some feedback if you are! The story kicks off in this chapter!

* * *

><p>8th October<p>

"Am I mad?" I asked Remus today.

"Compared to what?" he said.

I said I was worried (in the light of having spent 12 years in Azkaban) about how easily this house can affect me. Remus asked how honest I wanted him to be (sometimes he tells me I'm as handsome as ever. It relieves the misery a bit, like pressing on a wound.) I said "Go for it, be honest" and he said:

"I worry that you're letting yourself slip away. Sometimes in these past weeks I look at you and it's like you've become empty – as if your mind has wriggled out of here, as though there's nothing behind your eyes. And you're not doing things that should come naturally. You haven't shaved for a few days have you? Why are you wearing the same clothes for days on end? Why don't you brush your hair?" He wasn't really asking; the answer hung ominously in the air. He asked how the diary was going. I suppose it allows me to review the mangled contents of my head. Remus ended saying that "we're all worried about you." That's all I need – pity.

After dark fell, I went up to the top balcony hoping to see Jane. Remus's words had stirred me a bit so that I made an effort to clean my hair and get re-dressed, without a cloak, for her benefit, though I'm not a spectacular judge of Muggle attire.

Then, bugger it, she wasn't there! It surprised me how sad it made me, as though I had a right to her, and she'd deserted me. So I sat right up on the balcony, swinging my legs into mid-air over the brick yards below, to enjoy the open complexity of the world outside. A rat scurried along the wall adjoining this house to Jane's: I envied it for its freedom. I thought of what Harry had denied me, the chance to run at full pace along the Hogsmead hillside, the scent of the air, the lively company of he and Hermione and Ron. That was all I wanted.

Eventually, I heard Jane call and looked about to see her. It was evident that she had not planned to sit out, but had come up to draw the curtains on the top window, which embarrassed me slightly. I tried to look as if I was just passing. "Penny for your thoughts?" she said. It must have looked as though I were contemplating a jump. She wasn't far wrong.

And, continuing on a theme that occupies my head more and more, I replied "Missing my son. He goes to boarding school and I won't see him again til Christmas."

Jane looked empathetic, coming to lean over to me on the adjoining wall. "Kathrine's away til Christmas too. I know she's nearly twenty, but they never stop being our little babies, do they?"

She's right, when I think about it. Sometimes standing next to Harry I see five people simultaneously: a vulnerable teenager, a hardened fighter, an echo of James, the hope of the wizarding world, and the tiny plump little human I used to lay on my chest to go to sleep while we listened to T Rex.

"Where is Kathrine?" I asked.

Jane said "Uni" again, so I nodded and kept quiet on the matter. She added, "St Andrews too, so far away. I worry about her in the halls with all those men." A picture leapt to my head of a faceless young girl in the Hall at Hogwarts surrounded by lascivious men. I just kept moving my head up and down. "She's the lacrosse captain." My mouth opened to speak of Harry's Quidditch talent, but I had to make do with tennis.

"He has to be seen playing tennis to be believed," I said. "Jerky and graceful at the same time, so intuitive, just like his father." Jane gave me a wicked grin – I realised it sounded as though I had just advertised my own intuition. Suddenly I decided to ask her whether Harry looked like me, from what she'd seen.

"Yes, you're both very slim with the fair skin and dark hair."

I'm so proud. It's never occurred to me before now that Harry and I might look like blood father and son. It means that if/when we set up home together, we needn't advertise our history to strangers, we could live as a family…

* * *

><p>9th October<p>

Elrood Prattlewick's Dictionary of Muggle Parlance defines Uni as: _sl._ University. An institution of higher study for young Muggles, after schooling, and prior to employment. Aha.

* * *

><p>12th October<p>

I have just been insulted in my own house. I am fucking livid. Snape, the bastard, came in to the kitchen today, on the pretence of some Order business and said to me: "Your delightful Godson has not been in my class all week," and walked straight out! WHAT? Why would he say that? Is he telling me Harry's ill and flaunting it? Is he accusing me of forcibly keeping Harry out of potions? What the fuck?

I wanted to owl Harry immediately, but I still hadn't heard from him after that row in the fireplace, and I was still cringing with the thought of it.

_11pm_

Arthur's just been in and told me there's an outbreak of Dragonpox at the school! He said the whole place is quarantined off as off two hours ago, Muggle-born kids won't be immunised so are in danger. Something rather strange happened to me at this stage: whereas thinking of Harry usually occurs to me in a quick succession by his parentage (i.e. James+Lily=Harry) at this moment, I simply thought: Harry. My brain floundered in its panic struggling to process the simple information of whether Harry was Muggle-born. Finally it clicked out its paralysis and I remembered it clear as day; but another shock hit me a second later – Harry was Muggle-RAISED. He is not immune to Dragonpox! Snape said he'd been off all week. Oh Harry!

I'm sitting at the table worrying myself into fits, having just sent a letter to Dumbledore, asking him for news.

Arthur has left to inform Molly. Joy.

_1am_

I have just received this dreadful, blood-curdling letter.

_Sirius,_

_Thank you for your considerable judgement in writing to me in lieu of doing something rash. The situation is well-contained here with affected students cordoned in the hospital wing. Sadly I must confirm that Harry is amongst this number. If you think it wise, you are welcome to care for Harry in your own home, though care must be taken not to allow him into contact with Muggles or un-immunised wizards. Pupils whose families wish them to return home will be delivered by side-along apparition tomorrow morning._

_Dumbledore_


	5. Chapter 5

13th October

Was woken early this morning by Arthur and Molly clattering downstairs, trying to coax my whereabouts out of Kreacher. Kreacher is under orders not to divulge this when I am in bed or drinking so was stalling with his usual "Oh who can say what is on master's mind, most mysterious…" when I appeared.

Molly immediately started to gabble about Harry, saying she insisted he stayed at The Burrow until he was well. I felt my muscles clench. I told her in my most controlled tone that I would care for Harry myself, what with having been appointed to that role by God and Harry's parents. Molly proceeded to say that she had been looking after Harry since he was eleven, and apparently was a higher authority than God in the matters of other people's children. My blood frothed beneath my skin, but I was able to lull myself with one thought: the memory of that cold church in midsummer of 1980. The living little bundle in my arms; James's voice as he named me Godfather.

Knowing that James and Lily were (wherever they are) on my side, I said "Thank you, Molly, it's very kind, but I intend to care for Harry myself." She turned very cold and said she hoped I would enjoy myself. Thank you, Molly. Arthur said barely a word and looked at the floor; for the first time, I thought of him as a kindred spirit. Our sons are best friends. It's a heck of a thought.

As soon as they had gone, I owled Dumbledore to ask for Harry to be sent. He arrived at 2pm, clinging on to a seventh year girl, apparating in the middle of the tapestry room. I had to hide out of her sight, of course. She seemed a nice girl, didn't want to leave him alone, but he had to convince her that a relative was in the house and she could return to school. When I heard her pop away, I started a run to my Godson, but stopped dead in the doorway.

He's grown so thin. I felt a sharp jolt at my insides to look at him. Dark circles, like bruises, were under his eyes, whereas the rest of his face almost _grey_. The pox form a rash that almost disfigures him on the left side of his face, which is red and white like nettle stings. The green of his eyes glinted like the one point of recognition in the sickly visage. Finally, I walked over and took him in my arms. I expected a tight embrace, but he was almost limp.

"Do you want anything?" I said lamely. "A drink? Some food?"

He sleepily forced a smile but said nothing.

He is now asleep in the room he shared with Ron in the summer. It's a sombre comfort to think of him in the house with me.

_Midnight_

I just looked in on him. He is dead to the world. Should I wake him up so he can eat and take some potion? Or should I leave him? For now I have left him, but it's preying on my mind. Kreacher called him a "mudblood brat", then disapparated before I could launch my foot up him.

* * *

><p>14th September<p>

I crashed out of bed before six this morning, with Harry's voice ringing in my ears. His room is directly above mine – I was running up there at full speed before I even heard what he was saying. Help, it was: Help.

He sat up in bed, not wearing his glasses, panting slightly. I bundled him in my arms. There was nothing in the room. Thank God, he was safe. He rambled madly, asking where he was, what was happening. He clutched the front of my nightshirt in a way that, for the briefest moment, confused me: all of a sudden he was Lily's little baby, gripping my clothes or hair in his tiny fist. I shook this notion off. "You're in Grimmauld Place, Harry," I said. "You're with me, you're completely safe."

"Sirius," he said. He said nothing else, but I like to think he sounded relieved. I knelt down by his bed and pulled the covers over his shivering little frame and stroked his hair… James's hair… until he drifted off.

Remus came by during the day to supervise when the healer visited.

I stayed in dog form by Harry's bed. The healer was a classic, with a beard tucked into his belt and Persian slippers on his feet; I'm still not sure he isn't the same one who came to see Regulus once, thirty years ago.

His appraisal of Harry was quick and pessimistic. So much so, that Remus had very little time to say anything, let alone use the elaborate excuse we'd worked out for why he was looking after a boy whom everyone knows, lives with Muggles. He slapped some potions down on the bedside table, said he would not take payment as Harry's cause was very close to his heart – Merlin bless him! – and disapparated, leaving Moony and I looking at each other solemnly.

Harry has dragonpox. The presence of the rash means he is now in the climax of the disease, which has occasionally been known to be fatal.

He needs to gain a lot of weight, which will be tricky as he is saying he is too sick to eat. There are potions to reduce the swelling of the glands to help with this.

Side effects of late on-set Dragonpox (after puberty) include blindness and infertility. I hope I'm not the one who has to explain that to him.

"This week will see the end of it, one way or another."

No. Please no. Let him sleep through it, fill out quickly and be my bright-eyed little Godson again in a fortnight. Please.


	6. Chapter 6

September 15th

Been a very quiet day, but none the worse for that. For months I've been feeling that my brain was in a fever, storming away inside of me, waiting to break out. Now, suddenly, there is a lull – I cannot feel lonely and useless when my boy is under the roof with me, and needs my help. I am so calm that I might be losing all sense of myself; somehow the past and the injustice and the grief don't matter to me at the moment, and the present is peaceful and golden in so much as we are a sort of family.

Of course Harry sleeps much of the day, but I have been in to play chess with him, give him his potion and cocoa. We talked a lot today. In the reddening evening light, with the pox on his face and the angles of his cheekbones and jaw changed by starvation, he looked less like James than I remembered. In fact his eyes are by far his best feature… The past tried to creep up on me, whispering that I was further than ever from James, but I quenched it with the present: with a boy who is mine now, not an echo of my dead friend. Talking to him on his own, he is a lot quieter and more pensive than I would have thought. A rebellious bit of my brain suggests he is better than James.

Molly came over to fuss, but he was asleep. Ha. I am grateful for how kind she has been to Harry, but I am here now. I keep imagining being with Harry when he is over this, I think there can be no greater blessing than a healthy child. Molly has seven, surely she can leave one for me.

Remus is staying the night. We sat in the drawing room drinking coffee and listening to my old T Rex albums. "What about Tonks, then?" I asked. He didn't deny it, but shook his head sadly.

"Never thought it'd be you hooking up with a young girl with pink hair," I said. That feels like the kind of thing that I would do, but the girls have stopped looking back at me. I need to stop dwelling on this, or I'll turn into a faded Southern Belle. I asked if he loved her.

"I can't afford to," he said, "financially or in any other respect." He looked very careworn today. We ended up singing along to the music, like we used to so many years ago, as though we were shouting out to our memories, to our young selves. I wonder did our young selves hear us?

…That was a strange thought.

* * *

><p>September 16th<p>

Remus said I seem happier since Harry is in the house. He was giving me his knowing, sentimental smile so I shrugged him off, but inside I was beaming. The sun seems to be reaching the coldest, darkest corners of the house now Harry is here. Speaking of which, where is Kreacher?

Anyway, at midday I went into Harry's room and he woke up almost immediately.

"How are you feeling, kid?" I said.

"Better I think," he said, though a touch weakly.

"Is the pain in your stomach gone?"

"…Yes."

So I gave him some fruit and custard. I felt very paternal watching him eat, envisioning him growing stronger. After that I had to daub the pox on his face with balm of hepple, holding his face gently in my hand – I would never have thought I had it in me to be so gentle. Maybe I've missed a trick by not being a father. Not that I care so much, Harry needs me. Especially when he's so ill.

Molly came again to see him and fussed over him a lot. She sat by his bedside and lit a fire in a jar for to keep him warm. She gave me an accusatory look and asked for 'a private word' with Harry. I left them together but ebbed outside the room. I heard Molly say "How is he treating you?"  
>"Fine," said Harry.<p>

"Are you being fed?" she asked.

Harry said yes.

It made my heart burn away inside me, to hear her suggest I could neglect him. How blind can people be? I feel as though I love him so much that it must glow in my eyes or they can see my heart swell inside my chest. But people – especially Molly – treat me like an unexploded bomb. Like a dangerous murderer.

Harry rebuffed her politely on all counts, and I thought he didn't speak with her as freely as he does with me.

As she was leaving, she said: "You do know you can stay at the Burrow at any time, don't you? Arthur and I are always happy to have you, you don't have to stay here."

The reply from Harry was so quiet that I did not hear it.

All I heard was Molly say, "Yes, I'm sure."

What can he have said? Was it 'I want to stay'? Could it have been something in the style of the unexploded bomb, like 'I'm scared to leave him'? I've replayed the possibilities in my head all day.

Her visit must have worn him out, because he has been asleep ever since.

The house fell eerily quiet after Remus fled home for the full moon, so I slipped out up to the top balcony. Jane wasn't out for some time, but I waited, since the light of the very top room was on. Her attic is not an attic, but some kind of middle-aged woman's den. My waiting was rewarded and eventually she appeared (wine in hand) and said "Hello, James, I haven't seen you in so long!"

I said (with a tone of pride I cannot account for), "My son's come home, he's very sick."

Jane looked rather sadder than I felt. She leant on our adjoining wall and said, "James, I'm so terribly sorry. What has he got?"

"Dragon Pox," I replied.

"Chicken pox?" she said. CHICKEN pox? Is that even a real illness? When are kids ever near chickens? "Poor lad. And at his age!" Then she waxed lyrical about Katherine and her various maladies. There was certainly something of the Molly about her then. As she was talking, she climbed onto the wall to recline and I saw that beneath her flowing coffee-coloured dress she wore immense black boots with licks of metal flame up the heels. My heart warmed to her. She concluded, "They don't know how they worry us, do they?"

I agreed.

"How long will he be home for?" she asked.

Something inside me shirked from the question, as though it had come into contact with something cold and sharp. Harry will have to leave by next week. It seems ridiculous to think of that feverish, frail little boy getting up and going back to school – obscene, even. And yet, that's what will happen. This is what I told Jane.

"You must be worried," she said. I nodded. "Whenever Cathy comes home I want to grab onto her and never let her leave."

We watched the moon swelling up from behind the rooftops and talked about parenthood and the weariness of middle age. At about midnight she invited me inside, but I am not ready to be a step-father to the mysterious Katherine and her many ailments, so I refused her, even though the scent of womanhood from her glowing house was alluring as a cocktail in a drought. "I must get back to my son," I said, and descended into the bowels of the house. I wanted to grab onto Harry and never let him leave.

A/N: New chapter for you, with the plot bunny taking shape. I'd love to know what you think of it, especially as today is my birthday! :D


	7. Chapter 7

September 17th

Harry's room is a glum place. It's where Bellatrix and Narcissa stayed as children, the smell of dead roses still lingers there. But rather than move Harry, today I began decorating the room around him while he slept. I'm painting the walls dark blue, and if he likes it, might do some stars as well. The next time Tonks is here I'll ask her what the kids are into and buy him some posters – a boy's room should be a shrine of mess. I still have the Muggle stars of the day on my wall, because I cleverly stuck them there with a sticking charm so potent, even I can't reverse it; there's Meat Loaf who began my interest in motorbikes and Kate Bush who began my interest in scantily clad Muggle ladies. I ought to ask Harry about his musical interests and his Quiddich team, etc, it's a crime that we only ever get to speak about the war.

When I had almost finished the first coat, Harry came around. He was confused again, I think the fever gives him nightmares. He said "Mum!" and then fell silent and stared at me like he saw me for the first time. I gave him tea and toast and spoke to him gently to calm him. He has begun to eat everything he is given. His outcry made me think of Lily – a horrible abstract idea occurred to me that Lily was not a pile of bones somewhere, but an invisible ghost, unable to reach her son. As though she was in the room but could not make herself seen or heard. I imagined her wanting to nurse Harry, weeping because she could not. Ugh.

"What are you doing?" asked Harry, looking about at the walls.

"I'm doing your room," I said, awkwardly. He seemed surprised. I thought he would have been thinking of this as his room by now. I would rather take him somewhere quiet and rural, but since that is unlikely to happen soon… "What's your room at the Dursleys' like?"

"Nothing like this," he said. I bloody bet it isn't.

"Until I was eleven I slept in a cupboard."

I smiled grimly, but Harry returned me a slightly affronted stare. My God, he wasn't joking! FUCK! I could KILL those Muggles! Who could treat their sister's child like that? "A cupboard?"

"Quite a big cupboard."

I kicked the opposite bed in annoyance. Then, looking back to Harry, I saw that his face was very timid. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean it to happen. You've no idea… That night-" It's always _that night_ to us, "I went to your parents' house and saw them… I broke down when I saw your father, and hugged him to me. I've no idea how long I was there because the world seemed to have stopped. I lay there with him in my arms and through a gap in the blasted ceiling I could see the stars growing brighter. It must have been late. Maybe I was there for five minutes, or perhaps five hours. I was completely insensible, I just wanted to lie there and let the darkness swallow me up. Then I heard you, crying. It split the dark open – it was shocking and beautiful, like the end of a drought. I ran up the stairs and flailed around the rubble… and saw your mother. And you were in your cot." My baby. That very child sat on the same bed as me now, finally understanding what I could not tell him that night.

"Hagrid came to take me," he said.

"That's right. Dumbledore had decided to send you to the Muggles. Hagrid and I argued, but I was never going to win, I knew the Ministry would already be after me. But Harry, I really believed I'd see you again soon – I'd never have given you up if I thought it would be this long. I thought once I'd stood trial and handed Pettigrew in, I'd win you back."

Harry leant back on his pillows, already exhausted. The shallowness of his breath tore at my heart. "Do you still love me?" he rasped.

I brushed his hair from his dampening face, and removed his glasses so he could sleep again. "I never stopped loving you," I said.

"For twelve years?"

"Yep. Twelve years, Azkaban, it's nothing to love."

"But how could you love me when you didn't know me?"

I shifted to let him wriggle down further beneath the covers. "Very rarely do you love people because they're funny or interesting," I said. "Love is usually something that exists on its own, especially between families. I'd love you even if you were gone forever, or if you were Snape's best student, or if you were a Death Eater!"

"Or if I'm not like my father?"

It hit me like a blow to the chest. Somehow I'd convinced myself he'd forgotten about that day in the fireplace, but all through the entrapment here and his sickness, he'd had to think about that as well. The shame was almost paralyzing, so I couldn't have apologised as much as I'd like. But I said, "I'm sorry, Harry. You'll find it hard to believe, but I said that because I love you: because I wanted to see you so badly that the thought of you not wanting to see me hurt. So I tried to hurt you back, and that was wrong of me."

"I can't give you all I'd like to," said Harry solemnly. Like James, he must be virtually blind without his glasses, so he was staring mildly at the ceiling. "I wish I could be him for you, and give you your youth back, but I can't."

Tears prickled my eyes at this; I could only say, "I know, I love you," and close the door. Life is full of things we should have said.

_Midnight_

I have just had one of the worst frights of my life. After dinner (eaten alone in the kitchen as usual), I went to check on Harry – I can hardly write for shaking – and found him pale as a ghost and completely still. His breath, if he was breathing at all, was too shallow to be visible. My brain went hectic, I think I screamed and I certainly shook him violently enough to wake the dead, but I could not rouse him.

His skin was almost blisteringly hot, but thank GOD he wasn't cold! Tears, which I have found so hard to conjure even with all my misery, flooded down my face so hard that I spluttered them from my mouth. I yelled for Kreacher at the top of my voice, so loudly that I would have thought the Muggles on both sides could hear me, so loudly that it was more a howl than a word, and I said something that I have never said before – "Kreacher, help me!"

The elf popped up before me, unable to conceal a grin as he looked at my poor limp boy. I told him to get Remus as quickly as he was able and tell him to bring a healer here. Of course as soon as he had left all I could do was wait, and even for that I had to be a dog. Just as I wept as a man, I could not control my desperate whining as a dog. _Don't leave me_, I thought, _you are all I have._ I am not ashamed to confess here that I vowed that if Harry did not make the night, I wouldn't either. I could not let him leave alone.

Remus was heroically quick. The old healer had been on duty at St Mungo's and was there in a trice. When he set eyes on Harry, the little colour in his face faded. I gave an involuntary bark.

"What can we do?" said Remus.

"He needs sanguinacy," said the healer in a hurried voice.

"Isn't that rather extreme?" said Remus.

"It can bring him back from the brink!" said the healer. There could be no stronger argument.

Oh my poor kid! The healer knelt at his side and took a small goblin knife from a pouch in his belt. I flinched as he opened Harry's skin at the elbow. He inserted his wand and Remus turned almost green, covered his face, staggering backwards into the wall. Sanguinancy is horrifying to watch, I have no idea who could want to be a healer. He muttered the incantation and the sparks flew from his wand, up inside my boy, visible through his thin white arm. Spark, spark spark, they pulsed about his body like lightning; he began to shake. He gasped.

We all drew back.

The shaking throbbed into regular movements – thrashing, thrashing wildly about him, trying to push the healer away. He felt the pain in his arm. He was alive. He _is _alive.

* * *

><p>AN: There you go, a new chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, and you liked the Harry-Sirius conversation. Please leave a review!


	8. Chapter 8

September 18th

I woke at Harry's bedside at dawn – Remus was shaking me. "Go and get some rest," he said, "I'll watch over Harry." I was too befuddled by sleep to protest, though on thinking it over I should have stayed with the lad.

I have come so close to losing it all. I feel ashamed when I think of how self-pitying I have been, stuck in here, when I know that I came back to the British Isles to protect someone who so needs protecting. Other people in this war have lost their children, but Harry has been spared for me. I'm not an overtly religious man, but when I think what I have (what I nearly lost) there is nothing to do but thank God. And it is in the name of God that I am Harry's guardian. The sun seems to shine very brightly today.

Remus stayed with us all today. It has been a full moon, so he is tired as well. We sat on the opposite bed, talking about whimsical things. We gaped eagerly every time Harry stirred, but it was nearly three o' clock before he came round. Remus got him a bowl of porridge and jam, which he fed to him carefully as I cradled his head. He was so faint, so fragile. It was horrific, of course, but in a strange way, it was also beautiful… tragedy gives us licence to let out our emotions, and finally, after fourteen years of longing for it, I was able to cradle my boy and weep onto his face and say over and over: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."

He put his cold hand on the side of my face. I think he forgives me.

* * *

><p>September 20th<p>

The healer visited again. I sat in (fur and tail intact) while the medic complimented Remus on how well he'd fattened the boy up and soothed the rash – the rash will not leave any marks, a great relief. I wanted very dearly to be standing in Remus's place, smiling modestly and saying some of that waffle that Jane says: "Oh, I would do anything for him. There's nothing more important than the health of our children, is there?" etc.

Nevertheless, Molly and Arthur came today, and got to witness how well I've cared for him. I'm sure Molly expected him to be starved and filthy if not lying upside down in a ditch somewhere, so I bloody showed her.

As they were leaving, Arthur said to me, "Well it'll be a relief for you when Harry goes back to Hogwarts, won't it?" No, there aren't seven of Harry. When he leaves I will be alone and cast back into darkness and obscurity. Un-needed and un-wanted.

I am now drafting a letter to Dumbledore…

_Dear Dumbledore,_

_Two days ago we had a terrible shock here when Harry had to undergo sanguinancy. As you can imagine, it was very traumatic for him. He is presently still bed-ridden, but the healer is satisfied with his progress, and I wonder when he ought to return to school?_

_Yours,_

_Sirius Black_

* * *

><p>September 21st<p>

Harry came down to the kitchen today when I was slumped over morning coffee (I am always so tired in the mornings. I hope to God I'm not getting lazy being cooped up). He walked somewhat unsteadily, but smiled and addressed me clear as day – the fever has completely passed. His first words were "Are you OK?" I hate it when he worries about me.

We had porridge together and I am happy to write that he eats like a horse/fifteen-year-old boy.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

He said, "A lot better, when can I go back?"

"Go back where?" I said. God knows why. Maybe I just wanted to delay the answer.

"Hogwarts." And then, was it my imagination, or did my own Godson succumb to looking at me like he would an unexploded bomb?

"Soon," I said. "You're over the worst and that's what's important." I smiled. I do love having him here.

As a matter of fact, I had this morning received an owl from Dumbledore saying that he trusts Harry's judgement and to return the boy when he thinks he is ready. But Harry is always pushing himself too hard, he needs another day or two's rest. After breakfast I went down into the pantry and brewed a quick sleeping draught.

"To help you rest without nightmares," I told him. He drank it. I rested the goblet back on the table. "Don't you like it here?" I asked casually, as his eyelids started to droop.

He looked at me carefully, as if seeing through a fog. "I like wherever you are," he said. I ruffled his hair. A second later, he dropped into my arms. I carried him into one of the least unpleasant lounges – the one my mother called her sewing room – and lay him on a couch. Winter is drawing in, so I have started keeping the fires lit this week.

Not having any sewing, I went to fetch a book Remus leant me. The day was very pleasant, sitting doing various little things that needed doing, with Harry asleep beside me. In the next garden, through the thick hedge, I could just about make out Jane working on her flowerbeds with her hair tied back. Poor woman, alone in that inconceivably large house. Why doesn't she trade it in for a cottage at the sea side? Maybe she, like me, is trapped there for a reason she can't name. Maybe.

_Midnight_

After seeing her today, I sojourned out onto the top balcony. "James!" Her voice rang out on the cold air. She said she hadn't seen me for so long she thought I'd left. Oh God, suddenly I am obliged to come and see her! She asked after Harry.

"He's over the worst, but I want to keep him here a few more days, he needs rest."

"His mother must have had an awful fright," said Jane.

"His mother is dead," I said, quite truthfully.

She looked at me tenderly and apologised. I thought of Lily and mentally apologised to her, for spiriting her away into a stupid mythology of my own that I am finding myself deeper and deeper into. But Jane does not look at me like an unexploded bomb – she doesn't see the pain that Azkaban has wrought across my face. She doesn't know and therefore can't judge, that I am alone in the world, she doesn't burden me with her disappointment.

Although they say Muggles have explosives powerful enough to destroy the Earth, I have always found them sweet, uncomplicated company. I don't know whether I could really claim to like Jane, but she is something missing in my normal company; she is steady and wistful while our war rages on around her. The eye of the storm. Her shimmering, clingy clothes and the way she smells, not of perfume, like a young woman, but of something clean and homey.

And. She resurrects in me memories that are buried unspeakably deep -

Oh God, I am almost afraid to write it. I haven't had sex in fourteen years!

Tonight we shook hands as we departed. She opened her mouth again, as if to say something further, but turned back inside. Into her pretty loneliness.

She now thinks I am a widower, a responsible father and a wealthy Muggle. What, if the invitation inside ever comes, will I do with it?

Pro

1. Fourteen years without something most men my age get every other day.

2. She makes me feel alive.

3. She is lonely too.

Con

1. She must be over fifty.

2. I can't keep up the lies forever

3. Katherine. I don't want to have to meet her and be polite and take an interest in her just because I've slept with her mother

4. If anyone finds out I've been leaving the house… Or is that a pro?

I hate to admit it, but I think I may have to ask Remus.


	9. Chapter 9

September 22nd

Diary. I am not quite sure what to write. I have just done something that, viewed objectively, must be seen to be dreadful. On the other hand, apart from abhorrent dread, I feel, relief.

This morning I slept late, having sat up for hours thinking about Celia, and Jane and many other women chasing each other around my head. When I awoke, I was slumbered over this desk, with Harry standing behind me, with his hand on my shoulder. I jumped and turned to look at him. He said, very clearly (somewhat coldly) "Sirius, I want to go back to Hogwarts."

"Very good," I said, "if you're sure." I staggered up.

Oh my God.

We descended into the gloom of the house, him slightly ahead of me. That horrible, jolting delusion flashed on me for a second – I was walking down a secret passage between school and Honeydukes, pacing behind James, my leader.

God, no.

The portrait of my mother swung open and screamed. Harry was ahead of me, almost in the kitchen, when he awful, dead voice shook the house. How can this happen? How can my dead mother still be torturing me? I was so desperate, so inexplicably weak from all the crying and visions of last night that her outburst startled me even more than usual, and, I despaired. I fell to my knees in the hall – I think I screamed, I certainly wept. Harry spun round, alarm all over his face. _Oh God, to be alone with all this_. The next few minutes passed in a blur. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, with Harry trying to get me to drink some tea in front of me.

I looked at him. We looked at each other.

"You need breakfast," I said. I got to my feet, the kitchen glinting and swaying strangely in my view. I was aware of Harry staring at me, but I felt as though if I met his eyes just then, I would cry and never stop.

In the pantry I slapped food onto a plate, I don't remember what. It trilled along with my racing heart: _He's leaving, he's leaving me_.

I keep the potion ingredients and the medicines in there, on the top shelf.

It was lacewing flies, powdered, and Wolfsbane, sprinkled so finely you could hardly tell it was there. I carried it up to him; he looked at me warily. My boy. My legacy.

He ate placidly, while I reflected on what I have been through for him, and what I have done to earn his trust. Not half-way through the meal, he croaked. He clutched his arms about himself.

My blood ran cold, though my heart was thundering away inside me, wracking my nerves, making me want to cry out to him. I hate to think what anyone would have thought, seeing me standing over him, staring while he writhed in pain. When I was sure I could control my voice, I said, "Oh, Harry, you're still sick." I knelt beside him and put my arms tenderly on his shoulders. Love ran through me.

"Help," he said, softly.

Now he is lying by the fire in the drawing room. I have secured his company for one more day. He is white as a sheet, tired and weak. Had someone else done what I have done, it would sicken me. But what I did, I did out of love. When I came up here, I cried desperately. I must pull myself together, and go back down and help him.

_11pm_

Have written to Dumbledore saying Harry has taken a turn for the worst. Owled Remus as well. He came right over. I don't like feeling like a lazy Sultan summoning people to my abode, I used to be an attentive visitor to all my friends. Time was when I was at Remus's door for glass of wine before he'd gotten up. Haha!

Focus, Sirius. So. I was feeling very fragile when Remus came over, early this evening… I meant to tell him. I really did. I was such a bastard, such a fraud, letting him cradle me on the sofa as I cried my heart out, allowing him to think it was with worry about Harry.

Harry who I am supposed to look after. Who I love, in this loveless world.

"I love him!" I wept to Remus. "I love him!"

"I know," he lulled me. "And he will be better before you know it. I've been thinking – and give it a chance, because you won't like it – perhaps Snape would make something up to help Harry recover?"

Here I drew the line. "The healer said he's much better, remember?" Remus looked pityingly at me. "He's James's son!" I cried, though it added nothing.

Oh James. I am so sorry.

Sometimes late at night I think I can feel you lying next to me on the bed, like we're listening to vinyls, and I'm falling asleep, but neither of us wants to leave the other, so we lie there, like time has stopped. Like there is only us, and the bed and the music. But when I open my eyes, you have already escaped me. Tonight I am scared to lie down. If you are watching over me, I fear your anger, disgust, hatred, all of which I deserve. All I can say is that I truly love our son the way that I promised I would; I have done what I have done from desperation and loneliness, and you must know I would never harm him. That's just it. He seems to make the sun rise. And for the moment, I cannot cope with the dark.

* * *

><p>23rd September<p>

Weasleys everywhere. I ebbed on the top flight of stairs for an hour or so after they came in, trying to pretend I wasn't in, but of course, I could be nowhere else. Molly eventually climbed the stairs and faced me with her hands on her hips.

"Here to see Harry?" I said.

"Sirius," she replied, "I have nursed seven children and three brothers through all the illnesses known to wizard. I know you've made a good start with Harry, but I really feel it's in his best interests if he comes home with me."

I found myself on my feet, down the next flight and outside Harry's door in the space of a second, standing spread-eagled across the door-frame in her way. "Molly, my Godson is ill, and if you _dare_ try and move him out of my care, you will rue the day you were born."

I admit it was much more forceful than I had meant it to be. She shied backwards, mouth open, still gazing past me at the door as if by looking hard enough, she could see through the wood to Harry.

The story of what I said is all over the Order now. Arthur is giving me poisonous looks. Well she should not have tried to take Harry. Why does no-one think I am fit to be a father?

Dumbledore is in the house this evening, he has come to give the Order a briefing. We need people inside the Ministry protecting the prophesy, we need people on the ground subverting Death Eater's attempts to look legitimate, and we need me, in the house, making the fucking tea.

He spoke to me afterwards to ask after Harry. "He needs almost constant care," I replied vehemently. "It's frantic, making sure he gets all the potions, looking after him when he's feverish and all." Dumbledore nodded gravely, but did not say much. Shouldn't he have asked to see Harry? Curious.

Anyway. Tonight, I have done it again. Molly got Harry as far as taking dinner downstairs with us all. She broached the subject – in front of the entire table – of him staying with the Weasleys. "I don't want to," he said, clearly, "but thank you very much, it's very kind" blah blah blah, "But I'm fine here."

Molly looked at me accusingly, as though I had pupeteered him from across the table. I smiled at her, but inside I was fuming. "Harry needs rest," I said, when dark had fallen. And I made him cocoa, laced with powdered flies and Wolfsbane in the safety of the pantry, then carried it to his room.

I held his hand while he wretched. It almost killed me to watch. But after, when he hung on to me, asking me not to let him go, to stay with him, it was like warm honey trickling through my insides.

* * *

><p>AN: I know the story's taken a massive turn, so I would really appreciate some feedback on whether it's exciting/whether you think it's too OC, so I can accordingly improve on it! :) Really hope you're all enjoying this!


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Well I've been really touched by the thoughtful reviews the last chapter received It's really rewarding to get some well-rounded ideas of what people think: averaging everything out, most people like the way I portray Sirius, but it's been brought up that he may be moving beyond redemption, and that he can be too feminine (that must be a traditional case of an author letting herself seep through into the character :P). Obviously if I tamed him down, it would be less true to the state I think he's in during OotP and the motivation for this plotline has gone, but I will try and keep him on a good balance according to what you lovely people have said. Without further ado…

* * *

><p>24th September<p>

_6am_

Woke up in a cold sweat. What am I doing? Even if I turn back now, I still have to live with what I have done already.

What is that noise? Someone is singing at this hour? Shut up, it wracks my nerves!

Right. I cannot tell Remus, I decided last night, because this would be a score to Molly's faction and all those who think I am too mad/bad/dangerous to look after Harry.

Oh Harry, I am so sorry.

The worst thing by far about this is that the "right thing to do" is own up to everything and send him packing, but that would mean sending him out into the world – and war – without me; it'll mean that Dumbledore and the order won't trust me. Just a second of madness and now I'm shunted into a corner with Hell on either side.

The dawn is creeping through the dusty curtains. The light is infecting the house once again. When it's light, it's almost bearable.

_Evening_

The Weasleys stayed for dinner. One by one, they went in to see Harry, who was returning to health again, there would be faint speech and laughter filtering down to the kitchen. Then one redhead would appear and another would go up, Molly having decided that all going in at once might kill him.

It was dismal. Every time one of them returned, their eyes roved around the room and settled on me. Perhaps everyone has always looked around any room they entered, maybe I have never noticed, or maybe they were all suspicious. Either way I could not help but stare back apologetically.

The evening marched on with horrible inevitability, because despite all the horror that it stirs in me, I already knew I was going to poison my Godson again today. Over the table, Arthur and I kept locking eyes awkwardly, perhaps aware we were both trying to nestle into a space in Harry's life that is only big enough for one of us.

After dinner, I descended to the larder and made cocoa, and laced it. My footsteps echoed so much that they seemed to shake the floors, like the house was weakening, readying itself to collapse.

"Harry?" I said. He stood, fully dressed at the window, looking out as longingly as I often do. Except he actually has something to look forward to. "It's awful, isn't it?" I said. I laid the cup on the bedside table.

"How is the quarantine at the school?" he asked urgently.

"Fine. I think it's more or less over now, Molly says Hermione has gone back so they're calling back the Muggle-borns."

"When can I go?"

"When you're better."

"I'm _fine_, Sirius!" His voice nearly cracked on my name, as though he was about to cry, but it didn't show in his eyes. "I'm completely fine!"

"That's what you thought yesterday," I said. I joined him by the window. "Horrible, isn't it? Being trapped like this with all of London whirring about you, it's like being the eye of the storm."

"It's isolating."

"Not with two of us."

Down beneath the floors, the portrait started screaming again, I cursed it under my breath.

"When did your mum die?" said Harry, still gazing out in front.

"About eight years ago."

"Did you know?"

"Yes. Yes, they came to Azkaban to tell me. Said they were sorry, then left, the usual stuff. I asked about you, but they didn't tell me anything."

"What did you ask?"

"For anything they knew," I said, which was true. "Were you with your family, were you happy, had anyone seen you. They treated me like a monster, as though I'd tried to hurt you."

"But weren't you sad about your mother?" He's a very earnest boy, really, as I said before.

I replied vaguely that I had been, but not of my own volition. "Families love each other without any particular reason or intent; that's why they say you can't choose your family. I mean every day I was in there, I missed you, even though you were just a baby."

For a moment he looked as though he would join me in the sentiment. But in the end he only said, "I want to leave, Sirius."

"Fine," I said, for I could think of nothing better. I was on my way downstairs when I heard him fall to the floor. From a room behind me, Bill Weasley shot out across the landing, into Harry's room; I walked in after him. The cup had broken on the floor as Harry fell. Bill was kneeling over Harry as he gasped. Bill's eyes found the shards, and the liquid that was now soaked into the carpet. I stood lamely in the door, watching my Godson with a hollow sadness – of course he is with me for another day, but at what a cost. I felt Bill's eyes burn into me.

Oh God. I think I have been found out.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry about the short chapter, real life is intervening at the moment. Please leave a review! Also, there was a joke about a certain poet in this chapter, if you know who it is, you get… er… massive literary kudos.


End file.
